We can all be grateful that the slaughter in Gaza has been suspended, at least temporarily; that Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are being exchanged; and that relief aid can flow more freely to the suffering Gazan population. Not surprisingly, U.S. President Donald Trump is taking a victory lap and calling the cease-fire agreement the “historic dawn of a new Middle East.” He’s said similar things before, however, and so did some of his predecessors. I hope he’s right, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
There are two lingering questions looming in the aftermath of the present agreement. The first question, obviously, is: “Will it hold?” The second question—on which the answer to the first largely depends—is whether Israel’s relations with the rest of the world, and especially its “special relationship” with the United States, are evolving in ways that might make a lasting peace possible at long last.
Regarding the first question, it is hard to be optimistic. As other critics have noted, the “peace plan” was crafted by staunchly pro-Israel U.S. “mediators” (Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner) with minimal Palestinian participation. In its final form, it was closer to an ultimatum than to a negotiated settlement. It rejects some of the maximalist ambitions of Israel’s far right (such as annexation of Gaza and the permanent expulsion of its Palestinian residents), but it requires the Palestinians to make a series of difficult and impossible-to-verify adjustments, such as the complete disarmament of Hamas, the destruction of all its tunnels, its exclusion from all political involvement, and a radical but undefined reform of the Palestinian Authority. An as-yet unidentified external oversight body—overseen by a “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump himself—will monitor compliance and decide whether each side is abiding by the agreement.
More importantly, the agreement defers all the difficult political issues to some unspecified point in the future and is completely silent regarding Israel’s continuing efforts to gobble up the West Bank. This is the old story of Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football—there will be infinite opportunities for Israel to declare that Palestinian compliance has been insufficient and then tighten the screws (or resume the violence) once again.
To believe that this plan will succeed, therefore, one must believe that the outside world—and especially the United States—will maintain relentless pressure on Israel to maintain the current agreement and finally negotiate a just and permanent solution to its long conflict with the Palestinians. Yes, Trump seems to have finally tired of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delaying tactics and forced him to accept this limited deal. That tells you all you need to know about the leverage that U.S. presidents possess, if they are willing to use it.
But there is no evidence that Netanyahu, his right-wing backers, or Israeli society itself is willing to embrace either a genuine two-state solution or some form of one-state confederation, even if they were confident that Hamas and other extreme Palestinian factions were completely marginalized. Given Trump’s notoriously short attention span, mercurial personality, and disinterest in detail, does anyone seriously believe there will be sustained follow-through here?
The problem is not just Trump. Outside powers have often been willing to press the warring parties to stop fighting temporarily—as the United States and Soviet Union did during the 1956, 1967, and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars and as Washington has done on numerous occasions since then—but they have never been willing to invest sufficient time, attention, and political capital and to use the full leverage at their disposal to achieve a fair and lasting political settlement. That is why the Oslo Accords, the 2000 Camp David summit, the 2007 Annapolis Conference, the ill-fated Middle East Quartet, and other much-ballyhooed peace initiatives all failed.
If sustained U.S. pressure is required, then my second question becomes central: Could relations between the United States and Israel be evolving in ways that might make peace more likely, regardless of what Trump’s personal inclinations might be?
The Oct. 7, 2023, attack cost Hamas dearly in the eyes of the outside world, and Israel’s genocidal response has done similar damage to Israel’s image. Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and some other states have formally recognized the state of Palestine, an admittedly symbolic gesture that nonetheless conveys how much attitudes have shifted. Israel’s efforts to normalize relations with the Arab world are on hold. Here in the United States, public opinion polls show a dramatic shift in support, with more Americans saying they are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel, and with 41 percent saying they believe Israel’s actions constitute a genocide (or something akin to it), while only 22 percent see its actions as justifiable.
Support for Israel has declined most sharply among Democrats and independents, but prominent conservatives—such as Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—have voiced sharp criticisms as well. Democrats have been more animated by human rights concerns, while conservative critics see unconditional U.S. support for an increasingly rogue Israel as incompatible with the idea of “America First.”
The direct costs of the special relationship have been apparent for a long time. Israel is the largest foreign recipient of U.S. military aid, and the U.S. government is formally committed to maintaining its “qualitative military edge,” even though Israel is now a prosperous country that ranks 16th in the world in per-capita income and has a sizable arsenal of nuclear weapons. The usual total of some $4 billion in military aid per year soared during the Israel-Hamas war, which American taxpayers bankrolled to the tune of some $22 billion. This unconditional support is the main reason the U.S. remains deeply unpopular in most Middle Eastern countries, even as their rulers continue to curry favor with the U.S. government in order to obtain arms, investment, and market access. Unconditional support for Israel diminishes America’s soft power by undermining Washington’s claims to be a staunch defender of human rights and thus morally superior to great-power rivals such as Russia or China. This sort of hypocrisy may not concern the Trump administration, given the low priority it places on such ideals, but it is still at odds with America’s liberal ideals.
The special relationship also means that a small country of fewer than 10 million people consumes a disproportionate amount of bandwidth in the political life of the world’s most powerful country. Consider the amount of news coverage this one small country receives, compared to the amount of column inches and broadcast time devoted to larger and more strategically significant nations such as India, Japan, Indonesia, Nigeria, or Brazil. Austria has roughly the same population and GDP as Israel and is host of many international agencies, yet Americans hear about it only sporadically. Or look at the number of think tanks and lobbying groups devoted to this one small country, and the amount of time U.S. politicians devote to its problems.
Furthermore, matters related to this one small country routinely spill over into America’s broader cultural and intellectual life. The current assault on universities has many roots, but it has been supercharged by exaggerated charges of antisemitism stemming from students (many of them Jewish) protesting the Gaza genocide and the U.S. role in supporting it. Attacks on academic freedom and on freedom of speech more generally are not motivated solely by a misguided desire to shield Israel from criticism and preserve the special relationship, but that goal is an element of the equation for some.
Finally, look at the amount of presidential time and attention this one small country consumes. Jimmy Carter devoted nearly two weeks of his presidency to personally negotiating the Camp David Accords in 1978, and Bill Clinton tried to do something similar, and that doesn’t even include all the hours they spent on these issues outside the summits themselves. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden all devoted days if not weeks to issues related to Israel, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made 16 trips there during his four years in office but only four to the entire continent of Africa. Even Trump has found it impossible to remain aloof or to fully delegate Israel policy to his subordinates. And every hour that the president, his senior advisors, and other top officials devote to these issues is an hour they cannot spend working on problems of far greater direct significance to U.S. security and prosperity.
That is why I and others have repeatedly called for the United States to have a normal relationship with Israel, consonant with its size and strategic importance and its conformity with U.S. interests. In a normal relationship, Washington would no longer pretend that U.S. and Israeli interests are identical. When Israel acted in ways that the United States thought desirable, it would enjoy American backing. If it acted in ways that were contrary to U.S. preferences—e.g., by building more settlements in the occupied territories—it would face strong U.S. opposition.
Some observers might argue that a normal relationship does not make sense because Israel is not a normal country, due to its historic origins, the long and tragic history of Christian antisemitism, the legacy of the Holocaust, and its presence in a highly conflictive region. Perhaps, but in 2025, the ways in which Israel is not “normal” are in fact reasons to curtail U.S. support rather than maintain it. As Ian Lustick recently observed, Israel increasingly fits Israeli political scientist Yehezkel Dror’s definition of a “crazy state,” one that: 1) pursues aggressive goals that are often harmful to others, 2) displays an intensely radical commitment to such goals, 3) exhibits a pervasive sense of moral superiority despite being willing to act immorally, 4) has an ability to rationally select logical instruments to pursue such goals, and 5) has the capabilities sufficient to pursue them. In Lustick’s view, one of the critical determinants of Israel’s current trajectory “has been the nearly unconditional support which American administrations have given to Israeli governments,” behavior he attributes to “the Israel lobby’s super-abundant political power in Washington.”
Is this position “anti-Israel”? Hardly. Unconditional support has been bad for the United States and a disaster for Israel, which is losing support abroad, increasingly divided at home, shifting further and further toward the messianic right, and suffering from the steady out-migration of highly educated and economically mobile elites. A policy of “benevolent normality” would be better for America and better for Israel in the long run, even if it’s not in the interest of AIPAC, the Zionist Organization of America, Christians United for Israel, and the other groups that have kept the special relationship alive, helped bring Israel to its present plight, and enabled Israel to inflict considerable suffering on its millions of unwilling Palestinian subjects. If you want a lasting peace, in short, a more normal relationship with Israel is required.
The post The Peace in Gaza Won’t Last appeared first on Foreign Policy.
